Weddings Collection. Кэрол Мортимер

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СКАЧАТЬ you met Willow.’ Until he met Willow. ‘Does she know how you feel about stepping into your father’s shoes? I only ask because when we were having a drink last week, I got the distinct impression that she thinks you’re taking the fast route to businessman of the year.’ He waited. ‘That you’ve got accountants’ ink running through your veins.’ Then he added, ‘She doesn’t know about Maybridge, does she? You haven’t told her.’

      ‘Mind your own business, Cal.’

      ‘I’m your best man. This is my business.’

      ‘You’ve met her. She’s old money, centuries-deep breeding.’ Mike’s gesture conveyed unspoken volumes. ‘She was simply marking time, doing the social stuff at the newspaper until one of the local chinless wonders invited her to become his Lady Chinless Wonder and breed little chinless wonders.’

      ‘Excuse me? Have you actually read any of the stuff she writes? Listened—’

      ‘I have to live with the Chronicle, Cal. I’m not prepared to sleep with it.’ He held up his hands. ‘Okay, okay. If there was a prize for writing up the gardening club’s committee meeting I’m sure she’d get it. But you can understand why I haven’t suggested she move in over my workshop in Maybridge and live off what I make with my hands.’

      ‘What you wouldn’t do for your father, you’ll do for love? In your shoes, I have to admit I’d do the same.’ He looked around, then grinned. ‘Maybe the nursery should be a priority after all.’

      ‘This is my father’s idea of a subtle hint. He could give a steam hammer lessons.’

      ‘The heart attack hasn’t slowed him down?’

      ‘Heart attack? I’m beginning to suspect that it was nothing more serious than a bad bout of indigestion.’ But it had done the trick. Brought him racing home, full of guilt, to take over managing the Chronicle and its sister magazine, the Country Chronicle while his mother took the old man on holiday. A long holiday. He should have run then, smelt a rat the moment his holiday-hating father hadn’t objected to a six-week cruise. ‘I don’t know. Maybe I’m just being cynical. Whatever, it’s reminded him of his own mortality.’ He gestured at the wallpaper. ‘Hence the rabbits.’

      ‘That’s it? No other problems?’

      Mike dragged his fingers through his hair. ‘Well, I have to get my hair cut before Saturday,’ he said, making a determined effort to shake off a sense of doom.

      He loved Willow. She’d been the one bright spark in the darkness when he’d been forced to come home, take up the reins of the family business while his father convalesced.

      He’d walked into the office that first morning, his mood as black as the Chronicle’s headlines when she’d cannoned into him, her belongings scattering across the floor. She’d dived after her phone to check that it wasn’t damaged before rounding on him with a sharp, ‘Why don’t you look where you’re going?’

      About to put her right about who hadn’t been looking, he’d caught his breath and there had a been a small, still moment when everything, including his heart, had seemed to stop. Then she’d grinned and said, ‘Oops. Bad mistake. Memo to brain. Don’t yell at your new boss until you’ve been properly introduced.’ When he’d continued to stare at her, his tongue apparently stuck to the roof of his mouth, she’d added, ‘You are Michael Armstrong? There’s a photograph of you on your father’s desk—’

      ‘It’s Mike,’ he’d said. ‘And I’m not the boss. Just standing in his shoes for a couple of weeks.’

      ‘Oh well, hello, Mike.’ She’d stuck out her hand. ‘I’m Willow Blake.’ Then she’d given a little yelp. ‘And I’m late.’ And then he’d been watching her run for her car with a smile on his face that would have given the Cheshire cat an inferiority complex.

      He hadn’t intended more than a flirtation. A brief dalliance. Nothing heavy, nothing serious. She’d taken some catching, had kept him at arm’s length for longer than he was used to. The chase had been fun, though, and catching her had been…well…as if he’d found something he hadn’t known he’d been missing. But he’d pursued her as Michael Armstrong, acting head of the company she worked for. She was a class act and he’d needed every advantage he could use to stack the scales in his favour.

      And when he’d caught her there didn’t seem to be any particular hurry to explain that this was just a temporary persona. Then he’d asked her to marry him.

      And had meant it.

      Her slightly stunned ‘yes’, had left him wanting to shout stop the presses…reset the front page…I’ve got some real news…—drowning out the small warning voice telling him that she thought she was getting the heir to a publishing empire. Not a man who, in his real life, lived in the old hayloft above what had once been a coach house and stables. Above his workshop where he lived an entirely different dream.

      Could it be that he was afraid she wouldn’t want the real Michael Armstrong? Was that why he’d put off telling her?

      Once his father had driven them out to the house, handed them the estate agent’s glossy brochure, gift-wrapped, it had been too late.

      ‘You only have one life, Mike,’ Cal said, interrupting his black thoughts, reading his mind with frightening accuracy. ‘You have to live your own dream.’ Then, frowning, he said, ‘It’s the bride who’s supposed to be having last-minute nerves.’

      ‘I’d advise you to wait until you try it from the business end of the wedding banns before you make such sweeping judgements.’

      ‘That sounds like a bad case of cold feet.’

      The inflection in Cal’s voice again urged him to confide his misgivings, but things had gone too far for that, so he shook his head. ‘I guess I thought it would be simpler. I guess I thought getting married was just a question of turning up at the church on time and not losing the ring.’

      ‘You can safely leave those details to me. As for the rest…’ He glanced at his watch. ‘It’s nearly lunch time. Why don’t you go and find the lovely Willow, give yourselves the afternoon off and remind yourself what this is all about?’

      ‘I haven’t got time.’ Cal’s brows rose slightly. ‘I’ll be away from the business for the best part of a month.’ Except it wasn’t going to be the business, any more. It was going to be his business. He’d conformed, settled down and his father was all set to hand over the minute the ink was dry on the marriage register.

      ‘Mike?’ She’d been waiting an hour for him, finishing the feature about the holiday cottages, tidying up loose ends. Thinking of some way to tell him about the job she’d been offered.

      Leaving the paper would be bad enough, a kick in the teeth of both Mike and his father. And she’d have to travel to London every day, not always making it home, maybe. It was possible that if the Globe knew she was about to get married, they might not be so keen to have her…

      Mike finally made a note in the margin of a column of figures, then looked up.

      ‘What is it, Willow?’

      She looked at the pencil keeping his place in the margin and said, ‘Nothing. Absolutely nothing.’

      She СКАЧАТЬ